Under 450 - Challenge Run

[Edo]

Update #8

 

Not much happened this episode, should contain more story to do in my opinion.

 

Spoiler

After winning against Radomus, El kidnapped Luna and brought her to his cult's sanctuary, the Subseven Sanctum. I searched for them in 7th Street, until I found Bennett who led me there into a trap. After escaping and rescuing Luna, she returned to her gym.

 

 

So on my way to challenge Luna I got myself two new team members: Rotom (440) and Sableye (380). Rotom's other forms all have a BST of 520, so as long as it stays in its original form its BST won't exceed 450. Also caught some other mons that might be helpful for the future before I reach Agate Circus and can't return to get them.

 

 

Before Luna, I first needed to defeat Bennett. Again with Stealth Rocks, the fight becomes much easier. After one Earthquake, the field changed from Dark Crystal Cavern to the Cave terrain which even doubled the Stealth Rocks damage.

 

 

Luna was the first one in this Run I really struggled against, had to try countless times and switch around my team members to try different approaches, which made me feel like the Challenge had finally started. What got me most of the time were her too conveniently timed Sucker Punches that crushed every attempt I made. Either that or her Weavile/Honchkrow/Tyranitar just trampled my whole team whenever I'd already lost my counters to them.

 

Battle VS: Luna

 

 

[FriarTruck]

Togedemaru >> Tyranitar lol. That Zing Zap is stronger than I give it credit for, juussst managing to ko the Tyranitar. Also damn that's lucky that Sucker Punch fails against Nature Power otherwise that could've got hairy.

[areason]

How did you get a rotom this early? Got mine after Ciel

[Edo]

1 hour ago, areason said:

How did you get a rotom this early? Got mine after Ciel

Well you only need the green (second) Crystal Key that you get in Iola Valley, so you can go get the Yureyu Key and catch Rotom even before Luna.

 

5 hours ago, FriarTruck said:

Togedemaru >> Tyranitar lol. That Zing Zap is stronger than I give it credit for, juussst managing to ko the Tyranitar. Also damn that's lucky that Sucker Punch fails against Nature Power otherwise that could've got hairy.

I usually give my offense oriented mons Metronome to hold, that's why the second Zing Zap did enough damage. For being such a good item it's surprisingly early purchasable in the Department Store (Floor 3) and really helps ramp up the damage.

Against Luna I had to always watch out for Sucker Punch, lost so many times just because of that attack. Especially at that moment I just knew she would use it, so I intentionally kept using Nature Power since it's a status move so Sucker Punch couldn't trigger. She could've easily beaten me if she had killed Magcargo since none of my other team members would've lived another attack, not even Dugtrio at full health.

[Bennylava]

What version are you running with Luna starting Bisharp instead of her Absol?

 

Great stuff still.

 

I don't doubt the challenge is starting finally!

Any plans on how to take Samson's Hawlucha?

 

Does your rule on no power-up moves include defensive moves like Double Team or Iron Defense?

 

I'm going to start my own run with this. I love the idea! Gets me forced to use mons I either wouldn't have or haven't used since they were current!

Edited January 20, 2020 by Siv

[Edo]

1 hour ago, Siv said:

What version are you running with Luna starting Bisharp instead of her Absol?

 

Great stuff still.

 

I don't doubt the challenge is starting finally!

Any plans on how to take Samson's Hawlucha?

 

Does your rule on no power-up moves include defensive moves like Double Team or Iron Defense?

 

I'm going to start my own run with this. I love the idea! Gets me forced to use mons I either wouldn't have or haven't used since they were current!

It's 18.2

 

For Hawlucha I have Togedemaru with Sturdy, so that's actually not a problem. Glasscannons can easily be dealt with since you don't need much power to KO them, the problematic ones are the bulky mons that easily survive your hits but take you out in one shot.

 

Yeah every move that increases stats, even Accuracy and Evasion. Only exception is Crit chance (Focus Energy) cause that's a different system.

 

Good luck! It's definitely interesting trying out mons you would never consider otherwise.

[Bennylava]

23 minutes ago, Edo said:

It's 18.2

 

For Hawlucha I have Togedemaru with Sturdy, so that's actually not a problem. Glasscannons can easily be dealt with since you don't need much power to KO them, the problematic ones are the bulky mons that easily survive your hits but take you out in one shot.

 

Yeah every move that increases stats, even Accuracy and Evasion. Only exception is Crit chance (Focus Energy) cause that's a different system.

 

Good luck! It's definitely interesting trying out mons you would never consider otherwise.

Oh, wouldn't expect Togedemaru to be able to take his Acrobatics.

 

You give that guy defensive EVs?

 

Unless you have plans to change the field perhaps?

 

Took me Mandibuzz in my Dark run before I managed to tank that guy lol.

 

Thanks! Genuinely quite hyped for it ha. Hugely surprised at which mons are even allowed!

Edited January 20, 2020 by Siv

[Edo]

2 minutes ago, Siv said:

Oh, wouldn't expect Togedemaru to be able to take his Acrobatics.

 

You give that guy defensive EVs?

 

No it has EVs in Attack and Speed, but with Sturdy it survives every hit with 1HP if at full health, so it doesn't need to have them in defense.

[Bennylava]

1 hour ago, Edo said:

No it has EVs in Attack and Speed, but with Sturdy it survives every hit with 1HP if at full health, so it doesn't need to have them in defense.

Oh of course, Sturdy. I missed that in the last post.

[Edo]

Update #9

 

Again not much content until Samson, just a few trainers.

 

After meeting Terra, Cain and me arrived at Agate Circus where we also found the unconscious Aya.

 

 

Went to Route 2 in search of Hardy and found him at his sister's home. Titania gave me the first Battle Pass for challenging Samson, so I returned to the circus.

 

Battle VS: Samson

 

Since I didn't have much of a strategy against him, I expected the battle to be more difficult, but fortunately I won after only a few tries. Ghost types are immune to most of his ''Striker'' moves, so using them strips Samson of his main advantage.

Got pretty lucky with the para-hax against Lucario and Blaziken. Against Hawlucha I unnecessarily used Nuzzle (out of habit), I should've just gone straight for Zing Zap.

[Bennylava]

Nice one. You're making it look a little easy, ha.

 

Didn't even need Sturdy to live through the Hawlucha, a little surprising.

[Edo]

Update #10

 

With the 10^th badge in the bag I can finally use Surf.  After getting the TMX from Titania I headed towards Calcenon City together with Cain, Hardy and Aya.

Unfortunately we got split up on the way so I and Aya were on our own.

 

 

While we were making our way through Route 3, we ended up inside a hidden Team Meteor Base.

At its end we encountered Aster and Eclipse.

 

 

They like putting up screens at the beginning, so I immediately got rid of them with Brick Break. Afterwards it was a pretty straight forward fight.

I dealt with Aster’s team first so that it became a 2 on 1 against Eclipse.

 

And now, it’s finally time for Charlotte. Using Rain Dance is the way to go here as it weakens her Fire moves’ power drastically, making her no threat at all anymore, especially if the rain is brought up again after she sent in her Ninetales. Effortlessly defeated her that way.

Buuut that would be too easy, I thought, so I decided to do it the hard way and beat her without such a cheap tactic or by changing her field.

 

Battle VS: Charlotte

 

Beating her required lots of trial and error. Since her attacks are so strong that surviving even one hit can be difficult, I needed to find an ideal way through this. Dugtrio easily one-shots Typhlosion and Darmanitan, but Charlotte always sends out Ninetails next, which is not only faster than Dugtrio and kills it in one hit, but also survives Earthquake due to its raised Defense from the Seed and immediately counter-kills Dugtrio with the Shell Trap effect. Kecleon and Azumarill barely survive even one turn of Heat Waves and can’t reliably kill Charlotte’s pokemon, so it was mandatory that Dugtrio survives as long as possible. That’s why I needed two things: extra damage to take out Ninetails and stop it from attacking Dugtrio. For the extra damage Stealth Rocks is almost perfect, since it helps me kill Volcarona in one turn which can also live through Earthquake at full HP. But that wasn’t enough to deal with Ninetails. Fake Out or Quash with Sableye could have stopped it, but still wouldn’t have killed it. Fortunately with Prankster I could land Swagger first, and the Confusion damage was high enough to get rid of Ninetails in one turn, which also prevented the Shell Trap to trigger. Because Delphox was faster than Dugtrio, I had to use Sucker Punch that turn. After Aqua Jet took care of Delphox and only Rotom was left, I had basically already won the battle.

 

[Edo]

Update #11

 

Almost time for Terra. I got really worried about her battle because my team or any of my reserve pokemon don't look like they'll do well against her, and that I would need to replace at least half of my team.

 

But before that, the Pulse Avalugg stood in my way. Kecleon won this almost by itself, thanks to its high SpDef.

 

 

 

Shelly joined me on the way and, while we were searching for Heather, Blake appeared who’s supposed to look after her. After finding her locked up and freeing her, we went after Blake to Ametrine Mountain’s summit to get the Ruby Ring back that he stole.

 

Battle VS: Blake

 

Hearing from Cal that Terra’s actually part of Team Meteor, I head back to the circus to confront her, only to end up chasing her in the digital world. The Mewtu was easily defeated by mainly Kecleon again (forgot a screenshot) .

 

Eventually I reach Terra at the end of the glitch world. She was such a pain, I totally thought that my current team wouldn’t stand a chance against her, Still wanted to try it first cause at this point in game grinding up new pokemon is too annoying.

 

Battle VS: Terra

 

Kecleon’s high SpDef can be used as SpAtt, so that was kinda nice. But Azumarill seemed really useless, since Water attacks are now special and Play Rough becomes Normal. Also my Electric mons would only be helpful against Quagsire and Palossand. Because of their high bulk I wasn’t sure they could beat them, surprised me to see them doing so well. But against Garchomp I had absolutely nothing. Everytime I lost it was because of that thing. Eventually I won, only because it missed one Draco Meteor, thanks RNG.

[Bennylava]

Surprised to see Salandit was under 450, that's a nice addition.

 

Nice work with Terra. Did you have a plan for the Garchomp or were you just hoping for that bit of RNG at the end?

 

Just got past Noel myself. A. Marowak is doing work for me. Rock Head and Flare Blitz is amazing!

[Edo]

16 hours ago, Siv said:

Surprised to see Salandit was under 450, that's a nice addition.

 

Nice work with Terra. Did you have a plan for the Garchomp or were you just hoping for that bit of RNG at the end?

 

Just got past Noel myself. A. Marowak is doing work for me. Rock Head and Flare Blitz is amazing!

Actually my plan was to boost Kecleon with the Seed (120 base SpDef + 50%) so that it would do massive damage. It did much less than I anticipated, though. If it had Icy Wind it would have probably been easy, but I only remembered about the Move Tutor after beating her.

 

Nice, going well so far?

 

 

[Bennylava]

4 hours ago, Edo said:

Actually my plan was to boost Kecleon with the Seed (120 base SpDef + 50%) so that it would do massive damage. It did much less than I anticipated, though. If it had Icy Wind it would have probably been easy, but I only remembered about the Move Tutor after beating her.

 

Nice, going well so far?

 

 

It's surprisingly.. underwhelming. Kinda easy. One-shot every gym except Shelly and Noell.

 

But it's fun using all new Mons. Never used A. Marowak, Togedemaru or A. Sandslash before. Bred myself a Rock Head Marowak and it is a beast with Flare Blitz!

 

Got Gastly from mystery egg and I can use Haunter as long as I don't evolve it into Gengar and he absolutely destroyed Shade for me lol.

 

Currently leveling up a Piloswine for the future with Thick Fat. Did some breeding and got a pretty awesome shiny  Thinking he could be a strong user for Eviolite!

 

Picked up a Mawile, thinking it might be useful against Luna.

 

But I'm looking for a water Mon to use. Picked up Corsola whom I've never used before so I've no idea how to, will have to look into it. Any surggestions for Corsola or other Water Mons available to us?

 

Oh, btw. I love your Kecleon sprite! I did pick one up, not sure if I want to use him for this run - I don't want to copy what you're doing too much lol - but would you be willing to share the sprite? It's awesome!

Edited January 31, 2020 by Siv

[Edo]

27 minutes ago, Siv said:

It's surprisingly.. underwhelming. Kinda easy. One-shot every gym except Shelly and Noell.

That's just how it is at first, but it definitely became more difficult when I arrived in Agate. Just beat the Fiore Gauntlet, and had to rely a lot on my partners.

 

27 minutes ago, Siv said:

Currently leveling up a Piloswine for the future with Thick Fat. Did some breeding and got a pretty awesome shiny  Thinking he could be a strong user for Eviolite!

 

But I'm looking for a water Mon to use. Picked up Corsola whom I've never used before so I've no idea how to, will have to look into it. Any surggestions for Corsola or other Water Mons available to us?

Even without Eviolite it's already decently bulky, definitely a good idea.

 

Never used Corsola either, so I don't know how good it is.

How about Bibarel, Quagsire, Qwilfish or Seaking? You could get Seadra as well, but I'm not sure when it is available. And after restoration you can get Pelipper.

 

27 minutes ago, Siv said:

Oh, btw. I love your Kecleon sprite! I did pick one up, not sure if I want to use him for this run - I don't want to copy what you're doing too much lol - but would you be willing to share the sprite? It's awesome!

Thanks! Of course, feel free to use it.

[Edo]

Update #12

 

With Waterfall in the bag, I returned to the Celestine Cascades, where Amaria and Titania had jumped off, and followed them down the waterfall. I arrived inside the Water Treatment Center, controlled by Team Meteor, and, together with Titania, searched for the missing Amaria.

I refused to fight Taka after we found Amaria, so no battle here.

 

But right after going back with the girls, Solaris attacked us.

(I left the first battle out since it's pretty easy. Had to split up the second and third round because I could only upload less than 10 min.

 

Trick Room really helped out in this battles, although I did some stupid moves.

 

Battle VS: Fern+Blake

Battle VS: Solaris

[Edo]

Update #13

 

I'll do short updates from now, got busy so I can't play that much anymore.

So this time will only be the fight against Ciel, since there's lots of stuff post restoration that I want to do before continuing with the story.

 

Battle VS: Ciel

 

Ciel wasn't very difficult to beat since half of my pokemon were pretty good counters against hers. At first I kept alternating between Electro Ball and Hex to catch her Gliscor on the switch in, as she'd always send in Gliscor into my Electric moves. It was the only problem in this battle as well since I didn't have much to deal with Gliscor except Azumarill, but which I couldn't count on as it died to Acrobatics every time.

[Bennylava]

On 1/31/2020 at 10:03 PM, Edo said:

That's just how it is at first, but it definitely became more difficult when I arrived in Agate. Just beat the Fiore Gauntlet, and had to rely a lot on my partners.

 

Even without Eviolite it's already decently bulky, definitely a good idea.

 

Never used Corsola either, so I don't know how good it is.

How about Bibarel, Quagsire, Qwilfish or Seaking? You could get Seadra as well, but I'm not sure when it is available. And after restoration you can get Pelipper.

 

Thanks! Of course, feel free to use it.

Brilliant, thanks for the sprite!

Seadra is available after Luna, that would be a solid pick up. Bringing Quagsire, bred Recover for it. Will get Seadra when I can for the speed. Thanks for the suggestions.

Edited February 4, 2020 by Siv

[Edo]

Update #14

 

Finally done with exploring every place and pretty much all of the side quests available after the city restoration. Also got the Eviolite and trained up a NFE mon to the current level limit. Say hi to Shaggy (BST 435):

 

 

Right after being back in Reborn city, the Devon Raid is planned and we storm the secret hideout of Team Meteor. However, Lin trapped and forced us to battle each other.

 

Battle VS: Victoria/Arclight

Victoria was pretty easy, Arclight was a little harder though. His Jolteon was especially annoying.

 

After witnessing the conclusion to the battle between Ame and Lin, the last one in our way is ZEL and his Pulse Magnezone.

 

Battle VS: ZEL (Pulse Magnezone)

The Magnezone was a real problem, without Pachirisu I couldn't have beaten it.

[Bennylava]

Nice!

Who do you plan on using for your mega-Z ring or are you not planning to use it at all?

 

I was thinking Mawile or Beedrill myself, 

[Edo]

5 hours ago, Siv said:

Nice!

Who do you plan on using for your mega-Z ring or are you not planning to use it at all?

 

I was thinking Mawile or Beedrill myself, 

Since I already have a Sableye I'd use that, but with Prankster it might be worth not mega-evolving it. If I don't need to I'll probably not use it.

[Edo]

Update #15

 

This time it's Adrienn's turn. This battle was sooo difficult that it took me two days to win. And when I finally beat Adrienn I noticed I wasn't even recording, so I had to try again for just as long

Anyway, here's the battle:

 

Battle VS: Adrienn

 

The main problem was Mawile, which easily oneshots everything unless I put up Reflect. And Tailwind. Togedemaru and Dugtrio getting outsped always led to a loss. This time I was really lucky that Togekiss used Dazzling Gleam instead of Aura Sphere, or else Togedemaru wouldn't have survived. And tricking the AI into using Earthquake to take out Mawile by itself probably was the most vital part to victory.

[Bennylava]

Can't even imagine the rollercoaster of emotions that must have been finally winning to realize you forgot to record, ouch. Haha.

 

I'm at Adrienn myself so I'll wait with watching your replay until I've beat him.

 

I'm actually a little excited to get started with him hearing how difficult you found him!

 

Ah, got through Adrienn finally. Worst part was honestly the flinches from the Rock Slides, lol.

Edited February 15, 2020 by Siv